What are the current secondary school start times for MA public schools? You can find the start times for Massachusetts’s public high schools here. Massachusetts high schools, on average, start earlier than high schools in the rest of the country.

Our teenagers are going to school sleep-deprived, and this leads to physical, mental and emotional health problems.

Sleep research shows that adolescents have a different—and later—sleep cycle than younger children and adults. This is not a matter of habit, lifestyle, or stubbornness. It’s a matter of biology and natural circadian rhythms. The hormones that regulate sleep make it difficult for a typical teenager to fall asleep until after 11 pm and to wake up and be alert before around 8 am. Making them get up as early as 5:30 a.m. to catch the bus – right when they are in the deepest part of their sleep cycle - robs them of the deep sleep they need to grow and learn.

Is this different circadian rhythm why my teenager sleeps until noon on the weekends? Yes. Also, many teenagers try to make up for their lack of solid sleep during the school week by sleeping as late as they can on the weekend. This practice doesn’t really work, however. It leads to irregular sleep habits and may exacerbate the problem in the long run.

On average, 7 ½ hours a night. One Massachusetts high school, Algonquin Regional High School, conducted a survey in 2014 and found that 52% of students get 6 or fewer hours of sleep per night. Other Massachusetts high schools have reached similar findings.

Think six hours of sleep is enough? Think again. Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco discovered that some people have a gene that enables them to do well on six hours of sleep a night. This gene, however, is very rare, appearing in less than 3% of the population. For the other 97% of us, six hours of sleep is not enough. And, this isn’t just important for students, it’s important for adults too!

Lack of sleep has serious repercussions on teenagers’ physical, mental and emotional health. Sleep deprivation among teens is linked to depression, anxiety, susceptibility to illness and injury, irritability, car accidents, stunted growth, and even obesity and diabetes. Researchers found that sleep deprivation in adolescents leads to increases in so-called risky behaviors, including substance abuse, suicide ideation, suicide attempts and suicide. Sleep deprivation also lowers impulse control and reaction times (important for those driving). Student athletes who do not get at least 8 hours of sleep per night are at greater risk of sports-related injuries – 2.3 times higher risk for each additional grade in school. Lack of consistent sleep also negatively affects students’ ability to think and learn.

Shouldn’t they just go to bed earlier? Wouldn’t they then be able to get up early and be alert?

No. The circadian rhythms that regulate teenagers’ sleep give them a second burst of wakefulness in the evening. If forced to go to bed earlier than their bodies are telling them to, they may simply stare at the ceiling until their bodies’ melatonin kicks in around 11 pm, enabling them finally to sleep. The melatonin remains in their system, keeping them sleepy until around 8 am.

If they weren’t due at school until later, wouldn’t teenagers just go to bed even later than they do now and get no more sleep than before?

No. Again, research has shown that this is not the case. The Minneapolis school system, concerned about the adverse effect of early start times on its teen students, went from a 7:15 am to an 8:40 am start time for high school students in 1997. A study commissioned by the Minneapolis School Board found that their students went to bed at virtually the same time as before the change and, compared with students at high schools with earlier start times, on average got one hour more sleep per school night.

Other studies have found the same thing-whether comparing students before and after a shift to later start times or comparing neighboring school districts with different start times-the results were the same. Students go to bed at about the same time. The students with later start times sleep longer.

Later start times mean better performance in the classroom, on the field, and behind the wheel.

Yes. As important as sports and extra-curricular activities are, the first job of the school system is to educate our children. This has to come first. The Massachusetts Chapter of Start School Later believes that the school system should fashion a schedule that is best for the health, safety and academic needs of our students and work other considerations around that.

Some kids have to work at after-school jobs. How would that fit in with a later school day?

Teenagers who have after-school jobs are probably the most in need of more sleep. Early morning school hours make it very difficult for some of these high school students with long work hours to stay in school. In a study conducted for Minneapolis-area school systems, high schools going to later start times showed improvements in their rates of continuous enrollment and in attendance rates.

The study, conducted by the Center for Applied Research and Educational Improvement at the University of Minnesota quoted local employers as saying that later school hours did not affect their businesses or the amount of hours that students were available for work.

Similarly, the 1998 Fairfax, Virginia Task Force found that employers generally rely on students for evening and weekend hours. A poll of 15 Fairfax employers found them unanimous in saying that later hours would not impact student work hours.

What about high school students who now babysit for younger siblings after school?

This is one of the logistical issues that make change disruptive to families. The Massachusetts Chapter of Start School Later encourages legislators and school boards to give people plenty of time to transition and make new childcare arrangements.

If elementary schools start before high schools, then these high school students are available to stay with younger siblings in the morning and get them off to school.

Won’t it cost a lot to move school start time later? Not necessarily. Schools have been able to adjust schedules without increasing the budget. It takes creativity, but it has and can be done. Later school start times can actually reduce costs over time. The Brookings Institute estimates that moving school start time later provides a 9:1 benefit to cost ratio for high schools and a 40:1 benefit to cost ratio for middle schools. Short-term cost savings by school districts with early school start times are likely undone by higher longer-term costs, including lower academic performance, lost wages, higher rates of crime, more motor vehicle accidents and increased rates of obesity and associated health complications.

What has been the experience of schools districts going to a later time?

Districts going to later start times have experienced a number of benefits from the change. Many of the objections to a later schedule disappeared after it became clear that perceived difficulties, such as conflicts with athletic schedules, could be resolved.

Some parents had expressed skepticism about the change, wondering if all the students’ activities could be worked around the later schedule. But a year after the change, 92 percent of parents said they were happy with the new schedule.

I heard about state legislation to address this. Isn’t this a local school board issue? There is an appropriate place for both state action and local initiatives. Early school start times have left Massachusetts with chronically sleep-deprived students. Setting policy to protect the pubic health is a state issue, not an individual school district problem. The state should set a uniform, statewide policy with respect to school start time that aligns with the recommendation of the American Academy of Pediatrics. Senator Cynthia Creem introduced SD51 calling for a task force to study the effects of early school start time and provide recommendations to schools. Setting a consistent policy will help local school officials because all the schools will be changing together. When individual towns try to move school start time later, they have run into a host of logistical issues that result from the interconnected nature of our school system, such as after-school athletic and extra-curricular competition schedules. Local school districts also sometimes allow other factors to jump in front of the health, safety and academic success of the students. If all public schools changed together, these obstacles could be minimized or eliminated. How each school district implements the state policy can be decided based on local needs.

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